


the art of losing

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Temeraire - Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 18:45:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something that didn't happen to William Laurence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the art of losing

"Your daughter has lost her boots," Laurence said, after a while. There was a tightness to his voice matching the tightness in his muscles; the rough bedcover followed the lines and curves of his body beneath, marking a sharp edge. The tension was palpable in him, like a ship overpressed with sail.

Roland watched him with interest. There was nothing in it, to share her bed with him – they had been here, in this place, for days and weeks, waiting for the decisions of the Admiralty Board and the Chinese embassy, and they had filled the time. It had been more difficult, she thought, to fill the silence.

She got up, crossed the room, poured water from a ewer into a cup. He accepted, eyes skimming over her body in dispassionate silence. She returned, clambering roughly over him, noting the lack of warmth in his hands and feet.

"I reprimanded her for it," Laurence continued. "I called it a commonplace mistake. Unless bound down well, nothing survives a dragon's flight. She ought to have looked to the care of her possessions with greater attention."

"They were sound boots," Roland agreed, with a wary cheerfulness. "Her feet will be cold, that's punishment enough."

"I was severe," Laurence said. He seemed not to hear; or at least, there was something else, something different in the way his thoughts were taking him. "I was more severe than I ought to have been. We all mislay items. We all have our losses."

Roland said, suddenly, into the silence before it stretched and took on its own character, "Laurence, you concern me."

He was somewhere else. "She is young, yet. She loses only small things. I have lost boots, in my time. I went to sea at twelve, I lost my boots overboard in the waters past Gibraltar. I chide her for losing her boots, and I lost my dragon."

"Laurence," said Roland sharply.

He gave her a slow, almost sweet smile. "Temeraire will be returning to China upon the earliest appropriate vessel; I am to be returned to firm ground, or perhaps the sea." And then, formally, "I apologise for my earlier behaviour; I am, perhaps, much upset."

She rarely kissed him; she did now, and lay back and did not think small, unworthy thoughts of Excidium, nor of Emily, and let the warmth of her body ease into his chill.

By morning, it was colder still; the frost had come down overnight, and he had gone.


End file.
